The world of sports has become increasingly political over the years, as more players and athletes weigh in on major political issues of our times.
Lately, many teams within the NBA, the WNBA, the NFL, the MLB and other players have postponed and boycotted their own games in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake (a Black man shot seven times in the back, and left paralyzed from the waist down).
Vinu Sevaratnam, PhD candidate in Recreation and Leisure Studies at the University of Waterloo spoke on Kitchener Today with Brian Bourke on 570 NEWS. He says the intersection between sports and politics is nothing new. He points to the work of Lebron James and Colin Kapernick in recent years as examples.
Going even further back, he points to the boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games as an even older example.
Sevaratnam says players are entitled to their opinions, as per their right. What’s new is how more pronounced it is today, and largely player driven. That is something that was much harder to do back in the day.
“The player’s greatest asset here is, of course, the platform they have, in which they showcase their talent, and so if they completely end the season, one could say, ‘hey why are they letting go of the talent that they have that is a critical component their power,'” he said.
He notes that it is hard to say what effect the boycott will ultimately have, as there isn’t exactly a scientific way of measuring these things, but the hope is that it will spark significant social and political change.
“There’s no yard stick to measure the effectiveness of a protest or a boycott, but what I can say is that a protest is an act of resistance, and it helps to bring about political mobilization.” he said.
